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*** October Challenge - Gothic Horror ***

The full breadth of horror lies just at the flickering edge of the candlelight. Where will it take you this month?

It's October and this month we're delving into the darker recesses of the mind as we ask you to create a gothic horror inspired map. This is a very broad brief. You can go with a grand Transylvanian edifice complete with coffins and talking suits of armour fit for a vampire count, a map of Innsmouth scrawled on paper stained with the maddened tears of it's creator, a steampunk laboratory of Dr Frankenstein or any other map that fits in the broad spectrum of gothic horror.

Entries must be created as a new thread in this forum, in the format: "October Challenge - <entry name>". Each new image in the thread should be preceded by the tag ### Latest WIP ### for the thumbnail scraper to pick it up.

The challenge will end on the 26th of October and I'll post a warning a day before. The winner will receive a (slightly bloodstained) golden compass and glorious bragging rights. Good luck to all entrants!

Well I haven't participated in any challenges this year, but now it's October, and we've got a gothic horror challenge.

I've been thinking about a new series for my Kaidan, Japanese horror setting (PFRPG) called the Haiku of Horror, and this challenge seems to meet that personal challenge. The Haiku of Horror series will feature an iconic Japanese location with both labeled and unlabeled map, fully statted NPCs and monsters with varying CR and complete backgrounds and agendas. Rather than being a module or one-shot, this is a highly detailed single encounter location.

I fully realize that many might not consider Japanese horror as fitting their concepts of "gothic", so that makes it an extra challenge for me, which is fine. Kaidan, the setting has always struggled against more common thematics due to it's "Japanese-y" nature. I'm OK with that.

(I live in downtown Salem MA. Walking home from the train every day after work gets interesting this time of year. Fascinating people-watching though.)

Sorry, I'll go now.

Actually, I could do a map of downtown Salem in October (especially late October) from the point of view of a local just trying to get home from work. Braving the horrors of aggressive street vendors ("no, I don't want to go on a ghost tour, I'm just trying to get home from work."), fundamentalist Christian proselytizers aggressively trying to save the souls of the floods of tourists (on one occasion last year I saw a group of a dozen walking around with a bullhorn.)

And did I mention the traffic?

Halloween/October can get pretty horrific around here. Maybe I should map that.